Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

riding. The sides of these washes were unusually perpendicular and sometimes ten or fifteen feet in height, forming narrow, tortuous corridors, their walls broken occasionally by well worn cattle trails that led down one bank and up the other.

      Something attracted Kay's attention up the wash they were passing. "Cory!" she exclaimed in a startled whisper. "I saw a man up there. He had a handkerchief tied across his face."

      Just ahead of them the wash turned abruptly to the left, and the girl had scarcely ceased speaking when a rider blocked their further progress. He, too, wore a bandana about the lower part of his face, hiding all but his eyes.

      "Stick 'em up," he said.

      Cory's hands went up; and at the same instant Kay wheeled Lightfoot in an effort to escape; for in that instant she sensed that she had been led into a trap.

      Quick though her action was, it was too late, for as Lightfoot wheeled, the other rider spurred into the wash, blocking her escape.

      "Set tight, Miss," he said, covering her with his forty- five.

      "Climb down!" ordered the man confronting Blaine.

      "What do you want?" asked Cory. "If it's money, take what you want. I aint armed."

      "Shut up and climb down," growled the bandit.

      Cory did as he was bid, and the man also dismounted and came toward him. "Turn around," he said, "and don't make no funny moves if you don't want to get kilt."

      He took the riata from Blaine's saddle, had the man lower his arms behind his back and then secured his wrists there with one end of the rope. Looping the reins of Blaine's horse over the horn of his own saddle, he turned back up the wash leading his horse, while Blaine followed at the end of the rope, with Kay and her captor trailing in the rear.

      Around the bend a cattle trail led up onto the bank, and here the party climbed out of the wash and halted beside a clump of high bushes. Here the man who had Cory in charge made the latter lie down and quickly bound his ankles, after which he removed Blaine's bandana from about his throat, twirled it into a cylinder, the center of which he made Blaine take in his mouth, after which he tied the ends tightly at the back of his neck, effectually gagging him. Then he tied the prostrate man's horse to the other side of the bush.

      "I reckon they'll find you in a couple of days," he said.

      In the meantime the other man had taken down Kay's halter rope and was holding it to prevent another attempt at escape.

      "What are you going to do with me?"

      "You're goin' along with us, Miss," said the man who had been tying up Cory. "As long as you don't get to actin' up, you won't get hurt." Then he mounted, and the three rode up the gulch toward the south.

      It was five o'clock in the afternoon when Bud rode into the ranch yard, unsaddled his pony, and turned it out to pasture. As he walked toward the bunk house, Miss Pruell called to him from the veranda, where she was sitting with John White.

      "Where are the rest of them?" she asked, when he had come over.

      "I guess they aint far behind," he said. "I seen 'em a couple of times."

      "I thought Kay and Cory were with you," said Miss Pruell.

      "They dropped behind the first thing this morning," said Bud, "and I haven't seen 'em since. I reckon they'll be in directly though."

      A half hour later the other riders commenced to straggle in. Dora Crowell was first; and fifteen minutes later the Talbots appeared and joined them on the veranda.

      Miss Pruell had introduced John White first to Dora and then to the Talbots; and of each he had inquired about Kay, but none of them had seen either her or Cory.

      "Look there," exclaimed White, pointing up the valley. "Here comes a riderless horse."

      "That is probably Adams'," said Benson Talbot. "The last time I saw him he looked like he'd a whole lot rather walk than ride."

      Bud was standing at the foot of the steps and now he strained his eyes through the growing dusk. "That aint Adams' horse," he said. "That's Cory's. Somethin' must have happened."

      With the exception of Miss Pruell and Birdie Talbot, they all went down to the corral to meet the horse as he came trotting in. The animal was dragging his halter rope, the loose end of which was knotted about a bit of broken brush wood.

      "Cory had him tied and he busted loose," said Bud. "I reckon he's walkin' in and that Miss White is stayin' with him."

      "Why didn't they continue on with you?" demanded White.

      "That's just what I'd like to know," said Bud. "I can't figure it out."

      "Did the rest of you follow this man's trail all the way?" asked White, turning to Talbot.

      "Yes," replied Talbot, "it was plainly marked; and I think we never got off of it once."

      "Then if they weren't considerably off the trail you should have seen something of them," continued White. "There is something wrong here. It doesn't look good to me at all."

      "It doesn't look good to me either, Mr. White," said Dora Crowell, "and there is something wrong."

      "We should send out after them at once," continued White. "How many men have you here?" he turned to Bud.

      "There's me and two other fellers," said Bud. "We'll start right out if you say so."

      "I wish you would," replied White; "and you will be well rewarded if you find them."

      "We'll have to catch up some fresh horses," said Bud. "We'll find them all right, Mr. White. Don't worry." He turned to the two men in the corral. "Get up the horses," he said, "and get saddled up. I want to get a snack of grub before I start. I aint had nothin' to eat all day."

      When he had departed in the direction of the kitchen, Dora Crowell drew John White to one side. "I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, Mr. White," she said; "but if I were you I wouldn't trust entirely to these men. There's a deputy sheriff down in town. I think you should telephone him to start a posse out after them."

      "Do you think that it is as serious as that?" he asked.

      "I don't know," she said; "but if you were not here, I should have done it myself."

      "You must have some grounds for your suspicions," he said. "I wish that you would be frank with me."

      "Blaine is in love with your daughter," said Dora; "and," she added, "I don't think that he is any too trustworthy."

      "Does she care for him?" he asked.

      "No, and that is where the danger lies."

      "Where is the telephone?" asked White.

      "In the office," replied Dora. "Come with me, and I'll show you where it is."

      As the two returned to the ranch house, Bert Adams rode into the yard and up to the corral. He was swaying in the saddle when his horse came to a stop. Painfully and laboriously, he dismounted; then he lay down in the dirt, while his horse walked on into the stable.

      Bruce Marvel was sitting in the office of the hotel in the little cow town when the telephone bell rang. The proprietor was washing his face in a tin basin just outside the door. His hands and his hair and his eyes and his nose and his mouth were covered with lather. "Will you answer the danged thing for me, young feller?" he asked; and in compliance with the request Bruce crossed to the instrument.

      "Hello!" he said, as he took down the receiver.

      "Hello!" said a voice at the other end. "This is John White at the TF Ranch. I want to speak to the deputy sheriff."

      "Wait a minute," said Bruce, and then turning to the proprietor "Here's a fellow wants to talk with the deputy sheriff," he said.

      "He's out to his ranch, and he aint got no telephone. Take the message."

      "I